White House staffers are using this self-destructing-messages app to gossip in private — here's how it works

The Confide messaging app is used by White House staff members to talk about the Trump administration in private, The Washington Post and Axios reported.

The reason staffers chose Confide over other secure messaging apps like Signal is that Confide erases messages as soon as they're read.

This feature has led to a spike in Confide users not only within the government, but also within journalism.

"Suddenly popular among White House reporters: Confide," Olivier Knox, a Washington correspondent for Yahoo, tweeted on Tuesday.

"It's absolutely bananas over here," Confide President Jon Brod told Business Insider about the attention the small New York-based company has received after the recent reports.

Confide is also introducing a new, free verified-badge program for reporters around the world, Brod said in a Confide message. The blue checkmark will go next to the journalist's username, similar to Twitter.

Here's what you need to know about Confide, the self-destructing-messages app:

Confide is also useful because these self-destructing and limited-viewing features can also be applied to images and documents.

It's free, but you can pay to unlock additional features, including message retraction.

The self-destructing feature especially is why White House staffers worried about being caught leaking have adopted the app. According to Axios, "numerous senior GOP operatives and several members of the Trump administration have downloaded the app, spurred by the airing of hacked Democratic emails."